Jason DiSalvo Takes Daytona SportBike Pole

Henny Ray Abrams | April 3, 2009

M4 Suzuki’s Jason DiSalvo made it three different brands in the first three Daytona SportBike Superpoles with his first pole of the season on a cool and windy afternoon at Road Atlanta.Having qualified third fastest, DiSalvo had to wait out the final two riders, teammate Martin Cardenas and fast qualifier Jake Zemke on the Erion Honda. But Cardenas crashed in turn 10 and Zemke went much slower than he had in qualifying, and DiSalvo had his first pole in nearly three years.”The lap wasn’t anything super-spectacular; I just kinda pretty much repeated the same lap time that I did from this morning’s session,” DiSalvo said. “And it just felt consistent and accurate and I didn’t make any mistakes and that’s kind of what I’ve been missing the last couple times out in Superpole.”Just really happy to get my first Superpole. I kinda felt like people were expecting more from me in Superpole because of my qualifying history. And I wasn’t delivering the goods. So this is kind of like a monkey off my back.”

DiSalvo was a pole demon in 2006 when he contested the Superstock and Formula Xtreme classes. But his last poles, on both classes, came at Virginia International Raceway in August of that year.DiSalvo’s Suzuki was one of four brands that filled out the front row and there were five brands in the top five. Behind DiSalvo and Zemke came Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking, and Chaz Davies on the Factory Aprilia Millennium Technologies machine. Hacking was the pole winner at Auto Club Speedway. Yamaha’s Ben Bostrom was on pole at Daytona.Said Zemke, “I’m just really happy. My guys have done a really good job between the little break between Fontana and here to get me a little more comfortable on the bike. And it definitely improved the power delivery for me. And I’m really happy. I’m just looking forward to the race. The bike’s been really good right since we rolled it off the truck. The boys’ just been doing their work.”The fifth brand came next, Geico Powersports/RMR/Buell Racing’s Michael Barnes leading off row two. Next to him on the second row are Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki’s Roger Lee Hayden, in his return to racing after sitting out the first two races, and, Team Graves Yamaha teammates Tommy Aquino and Josh Herrin.Daytona SportBike Superpole:1. Jason DiSalvo (Suzuki) 1:29.9332. Jake Zemke (Honda) 1:30.2543. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) 1:30.8784. Chaz Davies (Aprilia) 1:30.9355. Michael Barnes (Buell) 1:31.0796. Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki) 1:31.4667. Tommy Aquino (Yamaha) 1:31.5568. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 1:31.5889. Danny Eslick (Buell) 1:31.77210. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) No time.